Computer Names: Publamcove01 through Publamcove08Computer Locations: Main Floor – Along the outside wall of classroom 102, near the Reference Desk.

Each computer has clearly been labeled with a note stating the following information:

“This workstation is currently running on a new test version. It will work exactly like the old clusters, but if you encounter any issues please let the Help Desk know.”

What is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or (VDI)?

“Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a virtual machine (VM) running on a centralized server. VDI is a variation on the client/server computing model, sometimes referred to as server-based computing.”

This essentially means that our VDI cluster computers will act as a shell that communicates with our main servers. Upon login our main servers will serve up the requested user profile and provide all of the computational processing power during that session.

With this new technology comes many added benefits:

Extended life for our computer cluster machines.

Improved performance

More secure roaming profiles

Standardized security configurations

Centralized patch management

Reduced costs

…and much more!

While our Systems department has worked hard to make this improved solution possible, we are still early in the practical testing phase. As such, only a few select computers have been configured to utilize the VDI technology at this time. Down the road this may become the standard way that we configure all campus cluster computers.

As you have probably seen on the news, identity theft is on the rise, and PSU’s HR and ITS offices have recently been made aware that a very small number of the PSU community members have become victims of tax-related identity theft. “Tax-related identity theft is when someone uses your Social Security number to file a false tax return claiming a fraudulent refund” (irs.gov). What we are seeing at PSU is not an isolated incident, but sadly, represents a significant national uptick. According to the IRS, the number of fraudulent return filings has been growing over the last few years. The General Accounting Office now reports that over 5 million fraudulent returns were submitted for tax year 2013, and 2.9 million of these were tax-related identity theft. Of the 122 million taxpayers in that year, 2.9 million represents 2.3% of the population. They expect the number for tax year 2014 will be far higher. PSU has been making an examination of our own systems, we have been working with the Information Security Office at USNH, and we have contacted cyber-security experts with the Office of Homeland Security. At this time, we have no indications that any PSU or USNH system was breached.

Knowing that you are not alone in this is of little comfort after it has occurred.

What should I do to prevent this?

We have reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and looked at IRS publications and have identified the following preventative actions you can take:

· Submit your tax return early

· Be careful of email messages claiming to be from the IRS or from a tax preparer (TurboTax, H&R Block, etc..) as they might be phishing

· Protect your computers by using firewalls, anti-virus software, update security patches and change passwords for any internet account on a regular basis.

This Sunday March 15th, Information Technology Services will be doing maintenance on several of the databases that host our PSU Banner Services. The work is scheduled to occur during the weekly maintenance window, and is planned to be complete by 8am.

myPlymouth and its related services will be unavailable to all users beginning at 4 am. This includes the web applications that are accessed via myPlymouth such as the myCourses tab (Moodle & Mahara), and the Services tab (Student Banner, Banner INB, Course search).

At anytime during the upgrade, PSU myMail may be accessed by typing: https://mail.plymouth.edu in the address bar and then logging in with PSU credentials.

We appreciate your patience as we work to improve our campus technology services. We know that there is never a good time to take down these critical services. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

PSU ITS has recently learned that a security vulnerability exists in Lenovo branded computers shipped between September 2014 and February 2015, called “Superfish”, which is an adware tool that was installed by Lenovo. This tool makes it extremely easy for secure web transactions (for sites like banks, credit card companies, stores, etc.) to be hijacked and can possibly lead to your information being captured.

While PSU does not purchase Lenovo computers for use on campus, we recognize that many people purchase these for their own personal use. IF you have a recently purchased Lenovo branded computer please take the precaution of visiting the link below to determine if this vulnerability impacts you:

If you would like assistance removing the “Superfish” application from your personal laptop, please visit the ITS Help Desk on the main level in Lamson Library and Learning Commons. If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Help Desk.

This Sunday December 7th, Information Technology Services will be doing maintenance on several Oracle database servers. The work is scheduled to begin within the weekly maintenance window, but will extend until Noon. This maintenance includes a vital patch for PSU Banner that must be in place by year-end in order to comply with licensing requirements.

During the upgrade myPlymouth and its related services will be unavailable to all users. This includes many of the web applications that are usually accessed via myPlymouth such as the myCourses tab (Moodle & Mahara), the Services tab (Student Banner, Banner INB, Course search).

PSU myMail may be accessed by typing: https://mail.plymouth.edu in the address bar and then logging in with PSU credentials.

PSU Moodle Courses may be accessed by typing: https://go.plymouth.edu/Moodle in the address bar and then logging in with PSU credentials.

We appreciate your patience as we work to improve our campus technology services. We know that there is never a good time to take down these critical services – this date was chosen, as it is the only weekend remaining prior to final exams and the Fall UG grade submission deadline. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

Starting August 15th, Plymouth State Information Technology Services will begin providing Microsoft Office 365 Pro Plus for students at no cost via the Microsoft Student Advantage program. This agreement between PSU and Microsoft allows us to provide current students with the latest version of Office Professional Plus at school and on their personal computers (up to 5 systems).

How to get it:

You must be a current student, actively enrolled in the current academic term.

Access is integrated with your PSU Username (not email address).

Sign in to myPlymouth, click on the Services tab and locate the Office 365 channel. Follow the instructions provided.

Got questions, or need help installing the software, stop by the Help Desk in Lamson.

The ITS Help Desk located in the Lamson Learning Commons is looking for students to work as members of our Support Team. Our student staff provides technology support for the entire PSU community; including Faculty, staff and students.

While experience with technology is desired, if you are highly motivated, have a strong desire to learn and GREAT people skills we are willing to provide training. Must be willing to work a variety of shifts, including some nights and weekends, as we are open 7 days a week.

Between June 1 and June 16, Information Technology Services welcomes the class of 2018 to campus for Orientation. We know it is a busy time of year and our incoming students are provided with A LOT of information about the campus. As a reminder, the bullets below represent the highlights of the technology information provided to students and their families:

The ITS Help Desk staff are available by phone, in-person (at Lamson Library), e-mail and live chat to assist you with any technology related questions, concerns, or advice. The Help Desk is staffed 7-days a week with early morning and late evening hours.

The PSU Wireless network is available across the entire campus – including Residential Halls, Academic buildings, Athletic fields, Lamson Library, the Hartman Union Building and Prospect Dining Hall.

Computers must be registered in order to connect to PSU Wireless. Pre-registration begins August 1, 2014 and is available on-line. For more information visit: go.plymouth.edu/resnet

Cable TV connections in the dorms require a coax cable. Personal network routers and access points are not permitted on the PSU wired or wireless networks.

Get tech answers at go.plymouth.edu/techtips – Tech Tips is an online knowledge base which allows users to read, share, and comment on information articles.

All students have access to 500 MB of personal network storage (enabling you to store and access files from any computer, anywhere), visit Tech Tips for more information.

Students are issued $40 of printing privileges in two $20 installments (July 1 & Jan 1), which is equivalent to 800 b/w pages annually. Students may purchase additional privileges if needed. Visit Tech Tipsfor more information.

Discounts on Dell and Apple Computers, as well as educational pricing on software is available to all PSU students. Visit go.plymouth.edu/computersales for more information.

Got Questions? We are around all summer and happy to answer your questions. Call us at 603-535-2929 or send us an email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu.

This Sunday May 25th, Information Technology Services will be doing maintenance on several mySQL database servers. The work is scheduled to begin within the weekly maintenance window, but extend until 1pm. This maintenance is part of the PSU web-tier improvement project and is necessary in order to improve the reliability to our web-based services.

myPlymouth and its related services will be unavailable to all users. This includes the web applications that are accessed via myPlymouth such as the myCourses tab (Moodle & Mahara), the Services tab (Student Banner, Banner INB, Course search) and all PSU Go-links.

PSU myMail may be accessed by typing: https://mail.plymouth.edu in the address bar and then logging in with PSU credentials.

We appreciate your patience as we work to improve our campus technology services. We know that there is never a good time to take down these critical services – this date was chosen, as it is the only weekend between the spring grade submission deadline and the beginning of June Orientation. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

At this date our position in ITS has not changed. We still prefer Chrome, Firefox and Safari for most types of web browsing.

For those of you who must connect to the Banner Systems hosted at USNH (both HR and Finance) and Document Imaging (Extender) our colleagues at USNH are recommending that you continue to use Internet Explorer (IE) for accessing these systems. We trust these systems; and with the added requirement of the VPN, we are confident that your connections to these web-based environments are safe.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the Help Desk.

As noted in the email sent to the campus-community on Tuesday, we chose to temporarily suspend service Tuesday evening on our web-based and email systems in order to secure and protect University data. This was an intentional outage so that PSU could safeguard its systems against the CVE-2014-0160 vulnerability, commonly known as the Heartbleed Bug.

As of Wednesday evening, all of our systems were patched and we do not believe that Plymouth State University suffered any data loss.

However, we strongly advise all Plymouth State users to change their passwords.

It is important to note that there are only three ways to change your PSU password. The first method is via the Change Password link within myPlymouth. The second method is via the What is my Password link on the myPlymouth logon page. The third option requires an in-person visit to the Help Desk located at the main desk in Lamson Library. Each of these processes require that you initiate the action. PSU will never ask you to reset your password by clicking on a link in an email.

You should also be aware that IT security experts estimate that between half and two-thirds of the websites on the internet are vulnerable to the Heartbleed Bug – essentially anything for which you have a username and password. There is a lot of confusing and conflicting information in the media and on the Internet right now. Based on our research, we suggest you should immediately change your password if you use:

Facebook

Gmail (or other Google services)

Tumblr

Yahoo mail

GoDaddy

Intuit (TurboTax)

Dropbox

LastPass

OkCupid

Soundcloud

Pinterest

Instagram

Twitter

Netflix

This list is NOT intended to be all-inclusive. You should take all necessary precautions to secure your information in any online accounts, including banks and online bill-pay sites. If you are not sure if a website or web-service has been impacted, contact that company directly.

As always, if you have questions or concerns about Plymouth State University services, please contact the Help Desk at 603-535-2929.

A critical vulnerability has been identified that impacts a number of PSU’s systems including myPlymouth and its related services (such as Moodle, Mahara, Self-service Banner, Banner INB, and PSU blogs). ITS will be making the necessary patches to secure our systems beginning at 9pm this evening. We expect that the patching process will be relatively quick (less than an hour) for most of these services.

However, the patch for PSU email services requires a vendor released upgrade, which will take up to 4 hours to deploy. During the deployment PSU email will be down.

We know that these services are critical to your work and that it is never convenient for these services to be down. However, we feel that the vulnerability is serious enough that we must interrupt services in order to secure our environment as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your understanding and patience.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Help Desk.

PSU is experiencing an increase in the number of phishing messages received by our students, faculty and staff. It is essential that we all maintain an increased awareness of phishing and its impacts; be VERY skeptical of messages asking for personal information regardless of whom it says the message is from.

With that in mind, Information Technology Services has enacted several changes during the password re-set and identity verification process. You will now be asked a series of questions to confirm your identity, should you need Helpdesk assistance during a password reset.

Beginning early next week, when you log into myPlymouth, you will be prompted to provide us with some additional information.

Confirm or provide your 3rd party email address – it is very important that this be an address you readily have access to, but is not shared by another person or family member. For example, you might choose to provide us with your personal Gmail address.

Confirm or provide your home Mailing Address.

Confirm or provide your current cell phone number. A cell phone number may be used to confirm your identity when calling into the Helpdesk and to insure we have the correct information on file for the Emergency Text-Alert system.

Please know that Information Technology Services takes the job of protecting your personal identifying information very seriously. By confirming your 3rd party email address and cell phone number you can help us insure that no one has unauthorized access to your PSU account.

Finally, please know that that PSU Helpdesk will NEVER ask you to submit your personal information via a link or web form found in an email. Official communication from the PSU Helpdesk will ALWAYS include our contact information (mail, phone numbers and chat) and may contain direct, and clearly articulated links to educational and informational materials located on our Support Wiki, however, these links will always point to a plymouth.edu Web Site. For example, more information about Phishing can be found on the Help Desk Wiki at the following link: http://www.plymouth.edu/webapp/helpdesk/wiki/Phishing_Scams

If you are unsure about the legitimacy of a message in your inbox or if you have questions or concerns about email security, please contact the ITS helpdesk at 603-535-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu

Have a great semester and please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have.

Make a safety and power-consumption difference by following these simple steps as you leave campus for the winter break:

1. Turn off and unplug those technology devices.

Computers, monitors, laptop docks and computer speakers.

Printers.

Power strips.

Cell phone chargers.

2. While away from campus . . .

Use the VPN to create a secure tunnel for submitting student grades in MyPlymouth before the December 27th deadline.

Use the built-in Vacation Auto Responder in the myMail client in myPlymouth to let students and other colleagues know when you will be away from your email for a selected period of time.

Is your myPlymouth password is due to expire this winter? (You can check by hovering your mouse over the Change Password link in myPlymouth.) Passwords for faculty and staff must be changed every 180 days and it is a good idea to make that change before leaving campus for the break. This will ensure that your password is distributed across all our systems and will help prevent any unexpected issues with connectivity.

Although our hours are different during the break, we are around all Winterim to assist you with any technology issues that come up.

We have all been seeing a lot of SPAM in our in-boxes lately. Our email administrators have been actively researching the issue and this morning they adjusted the acceptable threshold on our email system to make it more discriminating.

What does this mean for me?

There is a small possibility that the new setting may result is some legitimate messages getting flagged as SPAM and automatically be placed in your Junk mail folder. If this happens, simply use the features of myMail/Zimbra to mark the message as “Not SPAM.” This will help us fine-tune the settings in the email system. Visit the Help Desk Wiki for more information on Filtering SPAM with Zimbra. If you notice this becoming more than an occasional issue, please let us know via a call or ticket to the Help Desk.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Help Desk for assistance.

Yesterday, Apple has released a new version of OSX called “Mavericks”. Despite it being made available to all Mac users as a free upgrade via the Apple Apps Store, we strongly encourage PSU Mac users NOT to download Mavericks at this time.

Our network access controller (Bradford) is not yet ready to support this new version of OSX on the PSU network and by upgrading you will not longer have access to “PSU Wireless” and will be forced to use the slower SSID “PSU Secure Guest.” Furthermore, some PSU services are not available via the Guest network.

At this time, we are testing “Mavericks” for compatibility with all PSU systems, existing machines and other software. We do not anticipate it taking more than a few weeks. When testing is complete, we will alert users when our systems are ready to support the upgrade.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 535-2929.

Between June 2 and June 17, Information Technology Services welcomes the class of 2017 to campus for Orientation. We know it is a busy time of year and our incoming students are provided with A LOT of information about the campus. As a reminder, the bullets below represent the highlights of the technology information provided to students and their families:

The ITS Help Desk staff are available by phone, in-person (at Lamson Library), e-mail and live chat to assist you with any technology related questions, concerns, or advice. The Help Desk is staffed 7-days a week with early morning and late evening hours.

The PSU Wireless network is available across the entire campus – including Residential Halls, Academic buildings, Athletic fields, Lamson Library, the Hartman Union Building and Prospect Dining Hall.

Computers must be registered in order to connect to PSU Wireless. Pre-registration begins August 1, 2012and is available on-line. For more information visit: go.plymouth.edu/resnet

Cable TV connections in the dorms require a coax cable. Personal network routers and access points are not permitted on the PSU wired or wireless networks.

Get tech answers at go.plymouth.edu/techtips – Tech Tips is an online knowledge base which allows users to read, share, and comment on information articles.

All students have access to 500 MB of personal network storage (enabling you to store and access files from any computer, anywhere), visit Tech Tips for more information.

Students are issued $40 of printing privileges in two $20 installments (July 1 & Jan 1), which is equivalent to 800 b/w pages annually. Students may purchase additional privileges if needed. Visit Tech Tips for more information.

Discounts on Dell and Apple Computers, as well as educational pricing on software is available to all PSU students. Visit go.plymouth.edu/computersales for more information.

Got Questions? We are around all summer and happy to answer your questions. Call us at 603-535-2929 or send us an email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu.

Earlier this week, ITS suspended its Mobile Printing pilot due to an undesirable impact on the PSU Wireless. Wireless users may have experienced slow connection speeds or loss of connection, due to a flood of traffic on the wireless network. We are sorry for the inconvenience. We will continue to research our options for printing from mobile devices.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk at 603-535-2929.

Information Technology Services is piloting a new way to print on campus. For a limited time we will be offering Mobile Printing in select locations from your Android or iOS device.

For a limited time you can print that article you just looked up on your iPad, or your term paper from your Android phone while you’re walking across campus to class. Documents printed via the Mobile app will be deducted from your allocated print quota as usual.

We are currently experiencing difficulties with the PSU web pages and web based applications. This includes access to myPlymouth and its related services, Moodle, Mahara, PSU Banner systems, the Lamson Library website and online catalog, and PSU Website.

Google Drive (Google’s service that replaced Google Docs last fall) is now included as part of myPlymouth for all students, faculty and staff. PSU Google Drive is available on the Services Tab in myPlymouth and is tied to all active PSU user accounts.

Google Drive is the preferred method of off-site file storage and file sharing for Plymouth State University and it functions somewhat like Dropbox – by placing some or all of your files in this system, you can access them from anywhere and share them with anyone.

One note of caution however; we urge faculty and staff, to assess the impact of Federal privacy regulations (e.g., FERPA and HIPAA), Federal law, contractual obligations, and grant restrictions on their work before moving sensitive University-related files and data into the PSU Google Drive environment.

Features of Google Drive include:

5 GB of free cloud storage

The ability to create, share and manage files

The ability to sync files between multiple devices

Access ‘on the go’ through mobile apps

Additionally, PSU Google Drive provides students, faculty, and staff with the ability to work together on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in a highly collaborative fashion. The service makes it easy for students to work together on joint projects, and for faculty to share course syllabi and other documents with students. Simply invite others to share your PSU Google Drive docs via their PSU email address.

As an added convenience, the desktop application of Google Drive allows users to copy files into what looks like a folder on the user’s PSU owned computer. All files in this ‘folder’ are then automatically synced with the user’s Cloud Google Drive account, which means that the files are easily available on the Internet via multiple devices.

As the semester begins and flu season is upon us, now is a good time to remember simple measures you can take to stay well and continue to enjoy your semester!

Follow these basic tips to stay healthy and prevent the spread of colds and flu:

Wash your hands with warm, soapy water for 20-30 seconds. Alcohol based hand cleaners are also effective, unless your hands are visibly soiled or completely contaminated.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.

Perform routine cleaning in your living or office space. The flu virus can survive on surfaces and can infect a person for 2-8 hours after being deposited on the surface. Clean items and surfaces likely to have frequent hand contact.

In addition, sanitizing wipes have been provided for use on the keyboards and mice in all PSU public computer clusters, to help prevent the spread of illness.

This past summer the Information Technology organizations at all the campuses in the NH University System underwent a security audit. One of the resulting recommendations is to have employees change their passwords on a regular basis.

As employees we often have access to more than our own personal information. Therefore, protecting log-in credentials (username and password) is one of the most important things that can be done to insure data security. Never share your password with anyone – this includes colleagues, administrative assistants, family members and students. Doing so is a violation of the PSU acceptable use policy.

The process for implementing the 180 days expiration policy will work as follows:

Beginning February 18, 2013, all employees who have not changed their password in 180 days or more will be expired in four batches – approximately one batch per week.

Employees who have changed their passwords more recently, will automatically be set to have their passwords expire 180 days from the date of the last password re-set.

You can check to see how long it has been since you changed your password by locating the Change Password link in the myPlymouth identity box. It is located in the upper left hand corner on the main page of in myPlymouth. If you hover your cursor over the link without clicking, a small box will open to display your password status information.

For your convenience, the color of the Change Password link will change as you approach your password expiration date. The default color of the Change Password link is blue. 30 days prior to your expiration date the link will change to orange, and 15 days prior the link will change to red.

What other applications and devices are effected by Password Changes?

PSU passwords are often tied to many different applications. For example, if you use an email client like Outlook or Apple mail on your computer, you will need to update the password information in its preferences or account settings after the password change. Likewise, you will need to update your password in order to access the PSU wireless network and if you access the network, read email or use calendar functionality on mobile devices like iPads, and smartphones you will need to update those devices as well.

It is important to note that there only three ways to change your PSU password. The first is via the Change Password link in myPlymouth and the second is via the What is my Password link on the myPlymouth logon page. The third is via a specific request to the Help Desk.

Each of these processes requires that you to initiate the action. PSU will never ask you to reset your password by clicking on a link in an email. Requests for password information to be sent via email should always be suspect and are considered Phishing.

Need help changing your password and ensuring that all your other devices and applications remain working? Please do not hesitate to contact the ITS Help Desk. We are always happy to help!

PSU ITS, working in collaboration with our sister institutions (GSC, KSC & UNH) has adopted a new username format that you will start seeing in the near future. The purpose is to make it possible to have a single username/password combination that is good for any of the institutions that you have an account at.

The new username formula is based on full name, an institution identifier (PSU = a number 1) and a set of digits. For convenience, a friendly email alias will be generated using the old username convention.

For example:

Bart J. Simpson might get a username like “bjs1234″ and an E-Mail alias like “bjsimpson”

Please be aware that this change is only going to occur with any newly generated accounts or when someone requests a username change.

If you have questions, please contact the Help Desk at x52929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu

Some of you may have heard or read in the news this morning about a vulnerability with Java. PSU uses and supports a few applications that make use of Java to provide needed functionality, specifically Internet Native Banner (INB) and the PSU VPN. Currently, most faculty/staff systems are not running an impacted version of Java, so the risk is low. ITS is monitoring the situation closely and will push a new version out as it becomes available.

For personally owned machines, the only foolproof solution available, at this time, is to disable Java in your browser which may impact usability of sites that use of Java. If you choose not to do this, then we would caution you in the meantime to remember safe computing practices; avoid unfamiliar websites, avoid clicking on links in unsolicited emails and responding to messages from people you do not know, or that look suspicious.

Update – Tuesday, January 15, 2013 8:42am:

Last week we alerted you to a vulnerability with Java, a software product that supports several of the applications we use on campus such as Internet Native Banner (INB) and the PSU VPN. A Security Patch has been released for this product and the steps below are necessary to insure that your computer is updated properly.

PSU-Owned Windows Computers

ITS is in the process of automatically installing the update on all PSU owned Windows (Dell) machines. You will simply need to restart your computer at lunchtime or at the end of the day in order for the patch to install.

PSU-Owned Mac Computers

If you have a PSU-owned Mac, you will need to open Safari (the update will not work properly in Chrome) and visit the Java.com website.

Click on the red “Free Java Download” button in the center of the page. The page will automatically re-direct you to the appropriate download page for your operating system.

Click on the Red “Agree and Start Free Download” button in the center of the page and follow the install prompts.

Personal Computers

You may update your personal or home computer, by visiting the Java.com website.

The number of passwords we need to keep track of these days seems to be proliferating. As we become increasingly enmeshed in the web it is important to take some steps to protect your privacy and security by managing your passwords. Like many things that are important (think flossing), it takes an ongoing effort to manage your passwords, but it is well worth it. Below are six quick tips to consider:

Do not use personal information. You should never use personal information as a part of your password. It is very easy for someone to guess things like your last name, pet’s name, child’s birth date and other similar details.

Do not use real words. There are tools available to help attackers guess your password. With today’s computing power, it doesn’t take long to try every word in the dictionary and find your password, so it is best if you do not use real words for your password.

Mix different character types. You can make a password much more secure by mixing different types of characters. Use some uppercase letters along with lowercase letters, numbers and even special characters such as ‘&’ or ‘%’. Your PSU password must contain at least one upper case letter and one number.

Use a passphrase. Rather than trying to remember a password created using various character types, which is also not a word from the dictionary, you can use a passphrase. Think up a sentence or a line from a song or poem that you like and create a password using the first letter from each word.

Use different passwords. You should use a different username and password for each login or application you are trying to protect. That way if one gets compromised the others are still safe. For example, one password for your PSU access, a different username and password for a personal email account, and a third set of credentials for online shopping. Sites that require higher levels of security, like online banking and bill paying should each have their own unique set of credentials.

Change your passwords. You should change your passwords on a regular basis, at least every 6 months. You should also not re-use a password for at least 24 months.

Password security is the single most important step you can take to secure your online information. Do notshare your password with anyone and do not leave it lying around on sticky notes or in desk drawers where others might find it. This one principal alone can improve security dramatically!

The Plymouth State community, like many university communities across the nation, has been seen an increased level of Phishing in recent months. Phishing is a type of Internet fraud, usually in the form of an email, which seeks to acquire your credentials (username and password) by deception.

When one of our community members inadvertently shares their PSU username and password in one of these situations, they place not only themselves, but the entire PSU community at risk. As a way of helping you become more informed about recent Phishing activities are at Plymouth State University, your friends in Information Technology Services are happy to offer you two new resources:

The first is a short video about Phishing, highlighting why it is important to protect your personal log on information.

The Second is a page on the Help Desk Wiki, which provides is safe way to view recent examples of Phishing attempts received by the PSU community.

A number of PSU employees have recently reported receiving an email informing them that there is a problem with their Direct Deposit. Although the email appears authoritative, it is not branded with any USNH identifier, and does not contain the familiar information about WISE or contact information for our Plymouth State HR office.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS IS A PHISHING ATTEMPT.

If you received this message, please delete it immediately. It is NOT necessary for you to forward the message to HR or ITS Staff.

If you already clicked on the link and submitted your account information, please change your PSU password immediately, and/or call the ITS Help Desk right away.

Additionally, please be assured that employee’s direct deposits continue to be safe and tightly monitored by both our PSU and USNH Human Resources teams. If you have questions or concerns please contact the ITS helpdesk at 603-535-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu

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What is Phishing

Phishing is an online fraud technique used by criminals to entice you to disclose personal information. It is the fastest rising online crime method used for stealing personal financial information and perpetrating identity theft.

People who respond to phishing e-mails, and input the requested personal information into e-mails, websites, or pop-up windows put themselves and Plymouth State University at significant risk.

Institutional risk

When phishers successfully obtain student or faculty/ staff usernames and passwords to PSU systems, they not only gain access to the accounts that use those log-on credentials but they can potentially access high-value institutional data such as social security numbers, financial aid information, health information, and student data.

It’s a great way to both find out what is going on in ITS (we often report outages and upgrade information there as well as on this page) and a great way to ask questions of ITS. If you haven’t already, consider following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.

This summer, the Information Technology Services – Infrastructure Services team has made several changes to the wireless network in order to enhance services.

This work was done not only to complete the rollout of the wireless network across all residential spaces, but also to simplify and further secure the wireless network in all spaces across the campus.

You will now see a new wireless network SSID called PSU Wireless. This is the new role-based wireless network for use by all current members of the PSU community, which requires an active PSU username and password, and we encourage you to begin using it right away.

The transition plan from (PSU Student and PSU Employee) is as follows:

Monday, August 27:

PSU Wireless is active and available for active PSU Employees and Students to use. This is the preferred method of connecting to the campus wireless network.

PSU Student and PSU Employee are visible and remain active for employees and students to transition their wireless devices.

Friday, August 31:

PSU Student and PSU Employee SSIDs will be hidden, although those who are returning to campus that have those SSIDs saved on their wireless devices will still be able to get on the network in order to review documentation and make changes to their network settings.

Friday, September 21:

PSU Student and PSU Employee SSIDs will be turned off.

PSU Wireless is the only method for employees and students to connect to the campus wireless network.

Connecting to PSU Wireless does vary somewhat by device and operating system, but the steps are generally as follows:

Select PSU Wireless in your network setting panel. (If you have PSU Employee or PSU Student saved in the network panel, now would be a good time to delete them).

Enter your official PSU username and password in the network settings panel for PSU Wireless. Save this setting.

While summer is often a quieter time for students, the campus continues to buzz with activity. We see guests and assorted conference attendees all summer long. While on campus guests often need to make use of technology. Most frequently we see questions about how to connect to the wireless network. We operate a secure wireless connection for guests called PSU Guest. It does require a password to get connected, which you can get by calling the Help Desk at 603-535-2929.

Occasionally guests need more than just access to the internet. We also create temporary guest accounts for some guests. Those accounts must be requested by the sponsoring campus member who has access to request the account through the Equipment Reservation System.

Guests are always welcome at PSU, and we will do everything we can to make sure your visit is enjoyable and productive. If you have any questions while staying on campus please do not hesitate to contact the Help Desk with any questions that you might have.

We have seen an increasing number of smart phones and tablet devices on campus. Within ITS we are often testing various devices to ensure that our services work properly on them. We often come across interesting or useful applications and like to share these with you.

At PSU we use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for some services. The solution we use on campus is called Juniper. For example, the VPN makes it possible for a faculty member to connect to their departmental share drive from home, and for PSU to send and receive information from USNH. These services have traditionally been limited to computer use only.

Juniper makes a mobile application called Junos Pulse. This free app is available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play. This allows people who traditionally use the VPN to access information on their computers to branch out and also access the same information on their tablet or smart phone devices.

When you launch the app you’ll be asked to add a connection. You can give it a name if you would like, and then the url you need is https://vpn.plymouth.edu. You don’t need to fill in any other field. Once you save your settings, you can touch the connect button, and a window will pop up looking for your username and password.

Once you’ve launched the VPN, you can leave the app and continue on using your secure connection. When you are ready to disconnect, simply go back to the app and touch the disconnect button.

Many of us within ITS use Junos Pulse as our mobile VPN client and hopefully you will find it useful as well.

As you can imagine, coordinating commencement events requires collaboration from many departments across campus. Part of Information Technology Services (ITS)’s responsibility is recording and streaming the ceremony over the Internet. This is a fun project for us, but one that requires a great deal of pre-planning and coordination.

This project has two components, live streaming of PSU’s commencement to viewers on the Internet and capturing and archiving the audio and video. To ensure that all things run smoothly, we contract with two wonderful New Hampshire companies who help us with this annual event. EVP Creative assists us by recording and providing professional video production services and MFi Productions provides specialized equipment and professional audio support for this large-scale event.

ITS technicians take a feed from both these vendors to use for our stream to the Internet. This year we sent our primary web stream over Amazon’s Web Services cloud, which uses Adobe’s Flash Media Server to convert video and audio into a form that can be sent over the Internet. Amazon’s service allowed us to serve a wide variety of computers and mobile devices because it permitted streaming in multiple formats simultaneously. allowing everyone to enjoy commencement. Streaming video in all these formats enables us to serve a wide variety of computers, mobile devices and web browsers allowing everyone to enjoy commencement.

This year, there were 244 people around the world who tuned-in to the stream. The viewers were located as far away as Boston, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Florida, North Dakota, Indiana, Hawaii, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Peru, Venezuela and more.

We are always thrilled when we can help family and friends watch their loved ones on such a momentous occasion. This year through the means of technology, it was really a perfect day for our graduates and their families around the globe.

If you’ve ever had trouble with technology, either PSU-owned or your personal equipment you may have sought assistance from the ITS Help Desk. Located at the Lamson Learning Commons in Lamson Library, students and staff are available to answer questions 7 days a week. The most familiar ways to reach the Help Desk are over the phone, 603-535-2929, in person or through email, helpdesk@plymouth.edu. However, last year we also added the ability to Live Chat with the Help Desk.

When you speak with someone at the Help Desk, they will log a support ticket for you. You also have the ability to log your own support tickets without calling, emailing or visiting the Help Desk. This can be useful for a number of reasons:

In the Support Ticket System you can see any tickets you currently have open as well as the history of tickets you’ve logged.

You can attach screen shots or files to your ticket, which can be helpful if you have an error message you’d like a technician to see.

If you happen to be in a time zone that does not match up with the Eastern Standard Time hours that the Help Desk is open, you can submit a ticket any time day or night and ensure that the next available technician will review it.

You can access the Support Ticket System through myPlymouth. The link is in the sidebar under the ITS heading. The next time you have a technology question please consider submitting a ticket. We would love to hear from you!

You may have noticed a Campus Communication email this week regarding a new Anti-virus software rolling out soon. For several years we’ve used a product called Avira. We have had relatively good luck with Avira, but our contract with them expires on June 22nd. As we often do near the end of a contract, we evaluated Avira against other options on the market.

The Microsoft Protection Suite met all of our required criteria. There were several factors that lead to our decision to switch to Endpoint Protection which include: cost, system impact (performance), level of protection and ease of management. Incidentally, for computers not owned by PSU we generally recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, which is the free, single license version in the same suite of products.

If you are using a PSU-owned PC, in the next week or so you will see your red Avira umbrella go away, to be replaced by a green Endpoint Protection shield. You might be asked to restart your machine during this process, and that is normal. If your PSU-owned machine does not spend much time on campus, or if the install does not work properly you can bring your computer to the Help Desk in Lamson Library and we will help you get it working.

We will continue to perform full system scans on Fridays at noon. Endpoint Protection allows us to set the percentage of the processor that can be dedicated to the scan, and as a result, it has been throttled back so you should see much less of a slow down if you happen to be using your computer on Friday at noon. You can of course perform a scan (full, partial or quick) on your system at any time by double clicking on the green shield and following the prompts.

If Endpoint Protection does find a virus on your system, it will quarantine it. At that point you can call the Help Desk at 603-535-2929 for further assistance in removing the virus.

We are excited about this new Anti-virus software. It works well, and is the best solution for our community. Hopefully you find it to be a valuable piece of software, and we welcome your feedback.

As you can imagine, the technology systems involved in tracking the life cycle of a student are daunting to manage. From applying, to acceptance, registering for classes, obtaining financial aid, attending classes, receiving grades, graduating and becoming an alumnus. All of this data must flow smoothly between the students and professors as well as between offices such as the Registrar and Student Account Services. At PSU we use a product called Banner from SunGard Higher Education to manage a majority of our data.

Every year, SunGard Higher Education hosts a conference called Summit. PSU regularly sends representatives from ITS and other offices to this conference to learn about new products, creative ways of using existing products and to network with other schools. This year Summit was held in Las Vegas from March 26-March 29. Over 6,000 people attended from across the globe. PSU sent three members of ITS, Dan Bramer, Nathan Porter and Phil Manseau as well as Amy Morrill from the Registrar’s Office and Judy Ciesielski from the College of Graduate Studies. There were over 600 sessions offered on a wide variety of topics and products. ITS also attended Virtual Summit where a smaller subsection of sessions were available through a video stream. An important moment this year at Summit surrounded the merger of Sungard Higher Education and Datatel (a competitor company with many similar products). They used the conference to announce their new company name, Ellucian.

Members of ITS also spent some time learning about the newest version of Banner to be released, Banner 9. At PSU we are currently running Banner version 8. Banner 9 has some fundamental changes in the structure as well as changes to the look and feel. Upgrades in the past have been large projects that require detailed planning, testing and significant down time for the actual upgrade. Starting with Banner 9, the modules have been divided into much smaller pieces and upgrades will behave much more like small patches. We expect to see some of these small patches to Banner 9 here at PSU as early as this summer.

This year Dan Bramer presented two sessions, one about the paper-free admissions process and one about workflow (a product we use at PSU to automate business processes, often repetitive tasks that can be automated and streamlined). Nathan Porter also presented a session about the integration between Banner and Moodle. This is an excellent way to contribute to the Banner community, as well as save a little money for attendance.

The members of PSU who attended Summit 2012 both contributed to the Banner community by presenting and networking and also returned with valuable information to share with their colleagues. The information gathered at this year’s Summit will help to guide us in planning upgrades like Banner 9. Summit 2012 was a valuable experience, one that translates into valuable services to the PSU community.

The opening and closing keynote speakers at Summit 2012 were both interesting and informative. John Legend, the opening keynote speaker has won nine Grammy awards and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. John’s talk focused on his Show Me Campaign, an initiative that uses education to break the cycle of poverty. The closing keynote speaker was Jane McGonigal who spoke about gamification, which has some interesting implications for higher education teaching and learning. Jane has an interesting 20 minute TED talk about gamification for those who are interested in learning more.

We look forward to working with Ellucian this year as we embark on some exciting projects like the Banner 9 upgrade. Summit 2013 is scheduled for Philadelphia and is sure to offer us with some interesting teaching and learning opportunities.

Browsers develop brand loyalty similar to the way cars develop brand loyalty. You can often hear people talk about how they only drive Fords or they only drive Chevrolets. On the PSU campus you can hear people talk about how they only use FireFox or they only use Internet Explorer.

For several years now ITS has encouraged the campus to use FireFox. We found that FireFox was generally the most stable browser that supported the largest number of web applications. However, if you were to walk into the offices of ITS today and asked anyone which browser they prefer, most of the group would tell you they use Google Chrome.

The reasons we prefer Chrome are similar to the reasons we preferred FireFox in the past. It is considered to be the most stable browser on the market right now. It’s fast and the web applications we use on campus tend to display a little better on it. Chrome supports the most modern web technologies, and we like to stay current with those technologies.

Chrome embeds Flash, so there is never a need to update it. Chrome also updates itself automatically, so there is never any concern that you’re running an outdated browser. We have seen browser updates break functionality in the past, but have not seen these types of issues when Chrome updates. Anything that you are doing in FireFox right now you can do exactly the same in Google Chrome, and the performance should be a little bit better.

Sometimes we come across browsers that have several toolbars installed. While toolbars can be useful, they can also significantly hinder the performance of your browser. With Google Chrome you do not need any toolbars. A Google search can be done directly in the address bar.

As we continue to reach around the globe for students and partnerships, using Google Translate directly in your browser can be amazingly helpful when trying to translate Mandarin websites.

Information Technology Services is happy to report that they have successfully completed a $90,000 project over the month of January to add wireless networking capability to Samuel Read Hall, Belknap, and Blair Residential Halls.

This project, which was phase two in a three phase project to add wireless networking in all student residential spaces began 18 months ago as part of the larger ITS Client Access Project aimed at upgrading the aging campus network infrastructure. Wi-Fi for the two remaining Residential Halls, Smith and Grafton, is planned for completion in the Summer of 2012.

For questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu or by phone at 603-535-2929.

ITS will be performing maintenance on several critical services this Sunday, November 20, 2011. The work will extend outside normal maintenance window, and bearing any unforeseen problems, is scheduled to be complete no later than Noon.

During the maintenance window, customers should anticipate that access to the following services will be intermittent or unavailable: myPlymouth and its related services, Moodle, Mahara, PSU Banner systems, Lamson Library website and online catalog, and PSU Website.

There will be a brief Internet outage Friday morning, July 8, 2011 between 6 and 7 am in order to bring a new Internet Circuit online from UNH. The timing of this outage was selected in order to coordinate the work being done here in Plymouth with work happening simultaneously by our IT colleagues down at UNH.

While the actual outage is estimated to last only minutes, the coordination efforts between the two campuses necessitate that we sent aside the whole hour for the work to make sure that the process is completed properly.

Please bear in mind that during the actual outage there will be no access off the campus to the Internet, nor will off-campus users be able to access on-campus resources.

Please direct any questions or concerns you may have to the Help Desk at 535-2929 or via email to helpdesk@plymouth.edu

ITS is pleased to announce the introduction of a complete technology asset management program that will create efficiencies in managing, tracking and identifying all computing and networking equipment for the entirety of their lifecycle.

Beginning in June ITS will be initiating a campus wide program to place identification tags on all existing PSU owned desktop and laptop computers as well as other IT assets as we enter these assets into the system. The new identification tags will be small circular tags (about the size of a quarter) with a 2D barcode that will allow us to track and maintain the record with scanning devices. Andrew Garrozo, a 4-year student employee of ITS, will be conducting the inventory tagging process. You may see him around campus, in the clusters, offices and network spaces throughout the month of June.

We estimate the initial phase of the inventory to take 4 weeks and the impact of the inventory will be minimal since we only need a few minutes with each machine. We appreciate your understanding. We hope that this data will allow IT to more efficiently manage warranty schedules, repairs and assist departments with purchase planning across campus.

ITS is pleased to announce that the audit is complete and the information is currently being consolidated and analyzed. The next step will be to begin piecing together cost saving suggestions for each department in regards to printing and copying needs. Please continue to visit this page for the latest news.

ITS will be applying a patch on the Oracle Database Servers this Sunday, May 1, 2011 during the normal maintenance window. This is a patch released by Oracle for PSU in an effort to alleviate the trouble we have seen in recent weeks.

During the maintenance window, customers should anticipate that access to the following services will be intermittent or unavailable: myPlymouth, Moodle, Mahara, PSU email, M-Drives, PSU Banner systems, Lamson Library website and online catalog, and PSU Website.

Work is scheduled to begin at 4am with planned work completion no later than 8am.

Please contact the ITS Help Desk if you have questions at 603-535-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu

Phishing is an online fraud technique used by criminals to entice you to disclose personal information. It is the fastest rising online crime method used for stealing personal financial information and perpetrating identity theft.

People who respond to phishing e-mails, and input the requested personal information into e-mails, websites, or pop-up windows put themselves and Plymouth State University at significant risk.

Institutional risk

When phishers successfully obtain faculty/ staff user credentials for PSU systems, they not only gain access to the accounts that use the credentials but they can potentially access high-value institutional data such as social security numbers, financial aid information, health information, and student data.

Institutions can be blacklisted from Internet or financial services, resulting in reputational damage.

We use the valuable time of staff members (IT, legal, HR and financials services) to address the issues caused by phishing rather than applying their skills to more productive work.

Sharing Your Password

Sharing your password with ANYONE is a violation of the University’s Acceptable Use policy, and poses a significant risk to you and to the University.

If the PSU ITS receives a report that your account has been compromised, we will block all access (including your own) to your account, and you will be required to meet with a member of the ITS Leadership team. In addition, your workstation(s) may be confiscated by an authorized IT technician for analysis and needed repairs.

Please know that that PSU helpdesk would NEVER ask you to submit your personal information in an email. If you have questions or concerns please contact the ITS helpdesk at x5-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu

ITS is currently experiencing issues related to the Oracle Database Servers. As we work to resolve these issues it is possible that customers will continue to experience intermittent issues with myPlymouth, PSU Banner and other web applications. Individuals on campus can still access Moodle by typing go.plymouth.edu/moodle in their address bar, but off campus individuals may experience trouble. PSU webmail may be accessed by typing https://mail.plymouth.edu in their address bar and then logging in with their PSU credentials.

Please contact the ITS Help Desk if you have questions at 603-535-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu